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Three days after the storm had passed over the island; a lone muddy figure ran clumsily up Church Street to the Old George and burst wildly into the tap room. All heads turned and peered through the clouds of tobacco smoke but upon seeing the wretched figure of young Harry Moss they turned back to their murmured conversations and drinks.
“Uncle Sam!” Harry Moss shouted in a voice, to loud to be ignored.
“Belay that shouting!” the burly figure of Bartholomew Thatcher snarled from the bar. Moss paid him no mind though, pressing through the complaining men to where his uncle and ward, Samuel Moss, sat in surprise at this intrusion into his daily routine.
“What is it Harry?” he asked with some impatience.
“Uncle Sam, you must come and see!” Harry answered breathlessly. “There’s a girl out on the mud flats, there is!”
At once the room exploded into laughter and even Bartholomew Thatcher despite his aching head grinned around the pipe that jutted aggressively from his spade like grey black beard.
“Dost thou not know what to do with her then?” he called out to more merriment.
A cackling old man lunged forward to strike Harry weakly on the arm. “In my day…” he began.
“Please Uncle Sam, you must come and see” Harry pleaded. “Some one has done for her!”
Old man Moss frowned and leant forward gripping his nephews elbow.
“What did you say Harry?” he shouted above the laughter. The boy shook his head and muttered something, his eyes wild with fear.
“Shut your bloody mouths!” a voice cut through the room and instantly all fell silent, staring towards the corner where Morgan de Hogue had suddenly sat upright.
“She’s dead Uncle” Harry Moss stuttered in the shocked silence.
“Dead?”
“What are you saying?” Samuel Moss sat the boy on a chair and the room crowded nearer to hear.
“Out on the flats Uncle” Harry began to weep. “There’s a dead girl. She’s dead.”
The room was then filled with muttering and dark looks and some suggested they find Mister Bailey.
“Who is it?” A man asked in a nervous voice.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see that” The simple minded lad glanced wildly around the room, unsure of who had addressed him.
Morgan de Hogue stood up and the muttering fell away. He leant forward and in a gentle voice, he asked; “Where is she Harry? Where on the flats?”


Eventually a group of the men went to look. Thomas Bailey, a former Newgate prison guard who now worked for the magistrate in Chatham as the representative of law and order on the island was summoned from the harbour where his daily burden was to catch any contraband and he led Morgan de Hogue and Samuel Moss out onto the great mud flats which stretched for miles along the islands northern shore following the directions Harry Moss had whispered with wide eyes. Bartholomew Thatcher joined them apparently to satisfy his own curiosity.
Harry Moss would not go.
They crossed Beacon Hill and made their way down through the pastures of grazing sheep to the old ruined chapel which stood amongst the naked trees of Alderman’s wood. Here they took their bearings, searching for the path which young Moss had spoken of, and after a few minutes, Bartholomew Thatcher found the old gate which stood rotting amongst the brambles.“I used to come out this way as a lad” Samuel Moss remembered staring at the gate, “Gawd, but it’s been a long time!”